User Reviews

Channeling aspects of both science fiction and horror, Kitchen Sink is a provocative yet minimal short fiction film. The narrative begins simply with an everyday chore in an average setting which escalates into a dramatic day very quickly. This blandness is enhanced by being filmed in black and white, which then transitions into being suspenseful/mysterious, supporting the narrative throughout the film.

As a woman pulls an umbilical-like strand from her kitchen drain, the suburban dream is shattered into nightmarish proportions. While she was once intrigued and interested by what was hidden beneath, when she sees the alien fetus emerge she is frightened and disposes of it. It appears as if this opening implies the deterioration of suburbia or repression of abnormality.

The woman's fear however is not long lived. The fetus grows into a man, indicative of the natural cycle of life (despite him being "alien") from the womb into the world. Her disposition is altered by his nonthreatening presence. The woman's loneliness may be exemplified here by her eagerness to form an attachment to something abnormal to her. Yet, the woman exhibits a motherly attachment to the man rather than a sexual one. At first their relationship may appear sexual seeing as they are alone together and sleeping on her bed. Her tenderness comes across as she tends to him, instead. It isn't until she falls into her repressed desire when they embrace that her world becomes threatened for acting on her feelings that can be interpreted as incestuous, or against societal norms.

The film's ending can also be interpreted as a commentary on perfection. The woman chooses to shave him completely of his hair to make him appear more normal. This allows her to become more comfortable with his presence. She rejected his existence once because he was far from being human. Shaving his hair not only allowed her to mother his metamorphosis into a human/man, but it also allowed her to fulfill a fantasy that was previously denied. In the end she attempts to pluck out his last piece of self from his neck, which ends in either his and her destruction or the beginning of a new cycle similar to his emergence from the sink drain.

Kitchen Sink as domestic space--obvious, but true. A woman finds a strand of hair in her sink and pulls out a baby who turns into her partner, and the cycle of life continues from there. The black and white photography and the title had me expecting kitchen sink realism, and I wasn't too off on those initial assumptions if you mix it with a Twilight Zone episode and slight J-horror flavor. The woman is at her best when advancing, the horror always happens when the man advances. A low-dialog film, the story is told pretty expertly with images and the pacing is quite acute, which helps keep this short apart from similar ilk. They also cast this movie well as that is one strange, alien looking dude they got to spawn from dirty bath sludge.

--PolarisDiB

"Kitchen Sink" is a black-and-white horror short film from 1989, so this one will soon be 30 years old. The writer and director is Alison Maclean, a Canadian filmmaker still active in the industry today and she was 30 when she made this one here, one of her most known works still. The two male actors also still act. Oh well what can be said about these 13.5 minutes. It's atmospheric, but that's almost the only positive aspect. And you don't need to understand English to watch it as there is no dialogue in here. I thought it started off nicely, but the longer it went the more it began to drag. Maybe I could have given it a thumbs-up at half the runtime, but at over 10 minutes I think there were several uninteresting scenes and moments in here and it also takes away a whole lot of the scare factor. That's why, overall, I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended unless you really really love horror films. I was neither scared nor entertained. The best thing about it? It reminds you to clean your sink.

I saw this film today as part of my enrichment at college and I have to say, I'm impressed. I get so tired of the stereotypical Gothics which always give a helpless woman the role of the victim. There should be more films like this; where the woman is in control of her fantasy/situation and the threat is a supposedly sexy, gorilla-like man (who needs a good shaving)! I think that it should, perhaps, have been made longer (only lasts around 15 minutes)... I'm THAT curious as to what happens AFTER the end. The fact that the film is shot in black and white just adds to its mystery. It's rather surprising that this film was made the year I was born!

I study Kitchen Sink in my Media Studies class and only now I've actually come to appreciate the techniques Alison has used, me and...well...most of my class (there are a few who just don't care or pay attention) The lighting for one was very cleverly used.

There is the scene when the woman is thinking about the monster she just chucked in her bin. The light on one side of her face in the close-up scene was very cleverly done. One half of her face is in light, showing she could actually just leave the monster in her bin and forget, the other is shadowed in dark. Kind of foreshadowing her reversal decision where she actually takes the monster out of the bin. The dark side shows her desire and the path that could lead to the monster becoming alive.

The soundtrack too, is eerie and mysterious, like the monster who is eerie and mysterious, watching the movie with my class is possibly the only time they're all silent as the grave really. You can hear a pin drop apparently, it's quite lovely because usually they're just chatting like the teenage girls they are.

The woman changes from victim to aggressor during this film too. Alison has completely changed the way things, especially horror movies, were done in that time. The woman is usually the victim, and so she is in the beginning when she is frightened by this monster that she pulled out from her sink, but then after she makes the decision to chuck the monster in the bath, she turns into the aggressor when she shaves the man and designs how she would like him to look, she is in control of the situation and that's quite a change.

Kitchen sink, in spite of its name, actually doesn't have a lot in the film as far as props, set, or characters (I'm referring to the saying throwing in everything but the kitchen sink). Nevertheless, it is a creepy, atmospheric film which kept me on the edge of my seat. How many horror films today can you genuinely say have done that effectively? The premise is strange but original. The black and white shooting style which normally seems amateur works perfect in this atmosphere. It feels so cramped and tight that you feel claustrophobic too. When the fetus is taken out you're disgusted and curious. You also feel the man's pain when it grows in the water and she shaves it down.

It does become a little weird and so maybe I missed some of the larger message as far as when she kisses him despite his seeming deadness. But I love the way this film ends on the note it starts with although I am not positive what exactly the ending image means or will even produce (another fetus?). Definitely disturbing and yet no violence. Worth a watch if you're in the mood for some weirdness and to be freaked out.

9/10